Xograms ( + Photograms)

Whilst trying to find some photography that'd relate to this project, I stumbled upon this article about the work of Hugh Turvey. Whilst the main focus of it is to talk about / advertise his app, it introduced me to his Xograms.

The Xogram is very similar to a Photogram - it uses the exact same technique, just using a different wavelength. The result is the x-ray style images, showing the insides of the item. I wanted to play with this idea, but obviously using photograms (since that's the technique we're able to use).

As with any photogram, the starting point was to make a test strip. To do this, I covered the majority of the paper, laid the toaster on top, and after each exposure, I moved the cover gradually. I exposed the paper at 10 second increments (which, in hindsight, wasn't exactly an appropriate "testing time"). Surprisingly enough, I couldn't see any difference between each increment of time, and the object was clear throughout the entire photo. I did the same for some green paper, except using 3.5 second increments. For the actual photograms, I exposed both types of paper for 10 seconds.

I started off taking a couple of photograms of the entire toaster - one from the front, and one from the side. I think they came out really well since the toaster has a very distinctive shape. The photograms managed to capture details I otherwise wouldn't have noticed / paid too much attention too; in standard photographs, I found that the fraying cord end was almost lost, but in the photograms, it really stands out.

Having captured the exterior, I wanted to do something relating to the inside. Obviously, I couldn't do an x-ray / xogram. Instead, since the toaster I was given had two flap down slots for the bread, I thought I'd utilise that, and attempt to expose the paper through the inside. To do this, I cut a bit of paper down to a size that'd fit into the slot, and placed it where the bread would be. I held open the other side of the toaster, and exposed it through the other side. Doing this allowed me to get a really interesting picture of the heating element, which isn't something I'd usually think too much about. I repeated the process, except with the green paper. The green one didn't turn out quite so well, but I don't think I looked at the test strip properly - I should've exposed it for approx 15 seconds to get a better contrast. 

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to continue my photogram work due to a national lockdown, but I do think it was a really interesting way to explore this brief. Had I been able to access the dark room, I would've liked to redo the "internal" photograms, but cut the paper into the shape of bread slices as a way of representing how it was creating. It would've also have been interesting to see how different types of bread would've created different results - how would different slice thickness impact it? How would a crumpet look compared to a teacake? Plain bread compared to seeded?